Researching writers’ engagement with teachers: the Teachers as Writers research project

Along with colleagues from the Arvon Foundation, The Open University and University of Exeter I have just begun work on the Teachers as Writers research project.

This project sets out to determine the impact of writers’ engagement with teachers in changing teachers’ classroom practices in the teaching of writing and in improving students’ learning.

We are particularly interested in the impact of writers’ engagement with teachers on: a) writers’ effectiveness in supporting young people; b) teachers’ pedagogic practices and identity as writers; and c) students’ writing skills, including their motivation and confidence.

Schools participating in the project are from areas of socio-economic disadvantage in rural and coastal areas of South West England.

If you would like to receive newsletter updates of the project via email, please send me a message via my Facebook page (button on the right of this post) or use the contact form at the top of this website. I won’t use your email for any other purpose, nor pass them on to a third party.

Wonderful. All power to your collective elbows. I remember being involved in a similar project in Calderdale in the early 90s (when English Advisers did what it said on the tin of the job description)….days at Lumb Bank with NAWE. A young Lemn Sissay among the writers, with Debjani Chatterjee and Terry Caffrey among others. We were happy then. We can be happy again. Good luck to all of you.

Dear Anthony, Thanks for several posts. I attended your Brendon Books evening and bought and read your book, and wanted to thank you for all you are doing to promote poetry writing and to stimulate the poet in each of us. I also nominated you before Christmas for the Ted Hughes prize for 2015, citing your book and your blog as evidence of a huge and very generous and attractive contribution to poetry-making for so many people of all ages. I’ve heard nothing more about the Prize. But good luck with that – in case judging is still going on. Your lifesaving poems included one by Hubert Moore whom I knew in the late ’60s and early ’70s as we both taught at Sherborne School then. He gave my wife and me Heaney’s first book as a wedding present, and that began so much which is ongoing still. Can you give me an email or contact address for Hubert, please? Best wishes, Jeremy Harvey

Hi Jeremy
Thank you so much again for your wonderful kindness and comment. I appreciate them more than I can say.
I am writing to Hubert to pass on your details to him. I am sure he will get in touch with you in due course.
As ever with good wishes
Anthony